Didn’t we all learn from the antics of Cindy Brady in Episode 35 of The Brady Bunch that it’s just not nice to be a tattle-tale? That life lesson played itself out once again on Twitter recently. The lesson learned was kicked off by a tweet sent out by Jonathan Hoster who happens to work for Syracuse University as a Senior Admissions Officer:
“Every time I go to @PriceChopperNY I realize why they r not @wegmans . Tonight – bare produce areas & this sign 4 ex http://yfrog.com/2tfj9sj”
I found it mildly amusing too that trash bags can be found right along with the baking supplies at this particular store, but a Price Chopper employee, Ameerah Cetawayo, was not LOL. She replied to Hoster – via her personal Twitter account – and defended the store. She also went a littlle bit over the top and sent a tatle-tale message – via her corporate e-mail address – to Hoster’s employer (which she was able to gather from his Twitter profile) and called him a “destructive and negative” customer. Can you imagine your boss getting an email like that about something you tweeted?
What you can imagine is that yes, this story went viral. In the weeks following, hundreds of negative tweets were sent to @PriceChopperNY. Anthony Rotolo, Hoster’s coworker and Social Media Stategist with Syracuse Univerity, responded by posting this on his PriceChopperFail blog:
“Although Price Chopper’s actions cannot be excused, I believe they should be discussed as a learning opportunity. I invite readers to comment and engage in an open dialogue about this issue and I invite the people at Price Chopper to explain themselves.”
Price Chopper ‘s President and COO, Jerry Golub, very quickly found himself in a Syracuse University classroom performing damage control and addressing the many questions fielded by those attending the dialogue session. One of the questions posed included this one: “How do you draw the line between employees representing the company on their personal social media accounts and yet not running your employees’ lives?” Price Chopper’s response: “I don’t think there’s an answer to that yet.”
Without revealing too much, Price Chopper stated that “corrective action” with their social media policy and the employee were taken. Ameerah Cetawayo ultimately responded to the comments on the PriceChopperFail blog with some of her own:
“Hello. I want to take this opportunity to accept full responsibility for this situation. I am the Price Chopper employee who triggered this chain of events. I took matters into my own hands. And though well intentioned, I clearly went over the line without the knowledge of our consumer insights people or my direct supervisor, the Vice President of Public Relations and Consumer and Marketing Services. I was trying to understand and engage a disgruntled customer and clearly lost sight of my goal.”
So what’s your take? Are you finding that there’s too much crossover in your personal and professional social media identities? How are you managing where they might intersect?
